Our Christmas Card from Shutterfly!

I've been meaning to get back to our blog and now I have a great reason!

$10 off at Shutterfly for posting our project, woohoo

Here's a peek at the photo card you'll be getting from us in the mail...

Stationery card

View the entire collection of cards.

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AcsW7Zw3ctmTuY&cid=SFLYOCWIDGET

Happy Holidays!

Irvine Park for Daddy's Spring Break!!

Daddy was on spring break a few weeks ago, so we spent an entire morning at Irvine Park fishing, eating, bouncing, eating, riding ponies, eating, playing at the playground and finally some more eating!



Brixie Lee wanted to decorate a cupcake. BUT, she didn't put nearly enough frosting on it, so Mommy HAD to help!

Helene LOVED the cookie and wanted to see if it would make a good hair gel. What do you think? Good?

As always, Brixie Lee LOVED the pony ride!

Helene however, not so much :) Hahaha! Mean Mommy! Really, she loved it after the 3rd and final lap! Hehehehe!

If you would like to see all the pics, go to Don's Gallery!

Helene's 1st Birthday...

WOW! My baby girl is 1 now!

We had such a great time on Helene's 1st Birthday (Jan 23, 2011)! Thanks to Miss Kelly, Miss Lori, Miss Lora and Mr. Matt, we had an All American Cupcake party with hot dogs, cupcakes and t-ball. I know... not very girlie, but I'll be shocked if Helene ever lets me make her girlie! Every time I put something in her hair she promptly pulls it right out. Totally different than Brixie Lee who let me put things in her hair from 3 months old. I know she looks like a boy in her birthday picture up there, but she is extremely strong willed. Plus, this is the Helene that everyone knows, so why change it for her 1st Birthday?!

Anyway, we had a great time and thank you so much to everyone for coming to the party and celebrating my baby girls big day! If you would like to see all the pictures from her party you can check it out on Don's Gallery.

The Silencer...

So, for months I've been having a hard time getting Helene to stop crying during Stroller Strides. Then I discovered The Silencer...



I don't know why it took me to so long to figure it out, but I did and life in the stroller is now happy as long as she has a biscuit. I found out just how attached she is to her biscuit when I gave half of hers to her buddy Dillon. You would think that I had broke her arm in half and gave it to Dillon instead of the biscuit. The screaming that went on and on and on and on with tears and more tears and more tears was very, very sad... and kidda funny :)

I'm sorry baby girl... I will bring extra biscuits for your friends now instead of making you share your beloved biscuit. XOXO Mommy

Our Baby Girl Is 3...

Brixie Lee woke to Mommy and Daddy singing Happy Birthday (good thing she's forgiving). Then she watched Little Einsteins while mommy did her princess hair and dressed her in a Princess Bell costume. A visit from Nana was the highlight of the morning by taking her to a special one-on-one breakfast at Denny's. Luck girl! We added to the special day with cupcakes at the park with her friends (Yum-O!). And we're only getting warmed up here!!!



We drove down to Irvine to pick-up Daddy and have a family lunch at the Rainforest Cafe. Brixie Lee had been talking about it for days! She was so excited to see all the animals again. Helene however, didn't like the animals (except for the fish). We had a great lunch, but Brixie Lee enjoyed the birthday ice cream the most! No surprise there :)


The top of the afternoon was a surprise visit from Grandma. Both Grandmas in one day! It doesn't get much better than that! My sweet girl was most excited about the 50 cents that Grandma gave her for JJ The Jet Plane (a riding toy at Babies R Us). I hope the simple things continue to give her so much joy :)


After all the excitement both girls crashed and napped 2 hours later than normal. Unfortunately we missed one of Brixie Lee's last Kindermusik classes, but she preferred to help Mommy decorate her cake. She helped me bake the cake on Sunday night, then helped me make the frosting, BUT she put all the fruit on the cake (thank you Brenda!) My girl is more wonderful than words can say. She brings us so much joy and laughter. Mommy and Daddy love you with ALL OUR HEARTS!


If you would like to see the pictures from our day, you can check them out on Don's Gallery.

9 Months Flew By...

Still can't believe that my baby girl is 9 months old now. Well I guess she's actually 9-1/2 months old now because it's taken me so long to post these pictures! Her hair is finally long enough for me to put two very tiny clips in. The clips fall out quite easily, so I don't put them in too often for fear that she'll eat them like everything else she finds. When she's happy she says, "Dada, dada, dada!" And when she's hungry or tired she says, "Mama, mama, mama!" Other than that she babbles a lot and loves to say "oooooooo!" Which is what she's saying in our new header pic at the top of the blog :) She crawls very, very, very fast when she's trying to beat me to the bathroom or out the front door. Her favorite time of the day is bath time, closely followed by playtime at the park. She eats like a horse and yet is still only in the 50th percentile for everything (18 lbs 11oz, 27-1/2" and I say only because Brixie Lee was always in the high 90's). Her favorite food is yogurt, closely followed by cheese toast. She's a beautiful and stubborn baby girl and we all love her very, very, very much!

Brixie Lee is still Helene's favorite person in the world. Understandable because Brixie Lee loves to sing to her, dance for her and feed her. I guess she quickly forgets about all the toys that Brixie Lee takes from her, but that will change very soon. Brixie Lee is starting to understand so much more about her world. She loves to help me with everything and I try to let her do as much as possible. Mommy's little helper. She has swim lessons twice a week and always looks forward to her time with Miss Gabi. We're so proud of how independent she's getting in the water. By next summer she'll be a pro! Her love of music still blows me away. She loves all kinds of music and one of her favorite songs right now is Sentimental Journey. Just about brings a tear to my eye! Hugs and kisses big girl!

Our sweet girls!
Pure happiness!

We love you both with ALL OUR HEARTS! If you want to see all the pictures from this shoot, check out Don's Gallery!

Our 2nd Annual Micky's-Trick-Or-Treat Party!!!

Last year we took Brixie Lee to Micky's Trick-Or-Treat Party at California Adventure. She had a great time, so we decided to do it again this year. Grandma Dianna had bought her a Snow White costume earlier this year and Brixie Lee said she wanted to wear it this year to go trick-or-treating with Micky Mouse. Couldn't say no to that! Luckily we had learned a few days earlier that Helene didn't like the late night adventures, so Grandma came down on last minute notice to spend the night with Helene while Don and I took Brixie Lee to the "party."

Our Beautiful Snow White!

We started off on her favorite carousel again. My girl is just so stink'n beautiful! Love her so much. If you have time you can click on the link at the top of this post and see the similar picture from last year when she wore her cat costume.

This year Brixie Lee was much more adventurous. She wanted to do nothing but ride as many rides as possible. She skipped the candy lines and was not very happy about stopping for Mommy and Daddy to grab a bite with her friends (sorry baby).

We couldn't find Micky and Minne for a picture, so we settled for Creuella Daville. Brixie Lee was not happy about that at all. She's so funny!

We didn't get home until just after midnight and Brixie Lee still wanted to party. I think this will be an annual event for us!

Thank you for taking care of our baby girl Grandma!

If you would like to see all the pictures from our two Disney adventures, you can check them out here on Don's Gallery.

Happiest Place On Earth... For Some...

Back on September 27th, our favorite Crazy Lady, Miss Kristina, helped us
Non-Disneyland-Annual-Pass-Holding-Family (quite unusual compared to most our friends) get into the happiest place on earth. Brixie Lee LOVED Disneyland! We started off on the carousel, which we new would be a hit.

From there Daddy took her on Dumbo and she loved that too. I took Helene and Brixie Lee, but as you can see... Helene wasn't so happy.

Then we saw the parade and Brixie Lee loved every minute of that TOO. The girl was in heaven. We took the short walk to Toon Town and she toured all the houses (Mickey's, Minnie's, Donald Duck's and Goofy's).

Unfortunately, Helene didn't like one bit of the Happiest Place On Earth. Granted it was probably because we didn't get there until 5pm (2 short hours before bed time). She didn't eat well. She wouldn't relax in her favorite baby carrier. Then she cried almost all the way home. Very hard night for my baby girl!

It was a great learning experience for us and we decided that if we're ever going to become Annual Pass Holders, it will be AFTER Don is out of school and Helene is older.

Thank you, thank you, thank you Miss Kristina!

Once Upon A Potty...

I'm sure many of you are rolling your eyes thinking... Brixie, you're nuts! What are you doing putting an 8 month old on the potty? She can't even walk yet and your potty training?????

So here's the scoop on poop... I HATE IT! When Brixie Lee was 6 months old I started reading about all the different potty training strategies. Everything from holding a bucket to their bare bottom at birth to letting them tell you when they are ready. Neither of those sounded good for me. Then I found the "Diaper Free By 3" book that was written by a pediatrician who saw the world as I do. The book has lots of good information in it, but the bottom line is an early "introduction" to the potty. Brixie Lee was 1 day shy of 7 months old when I first sat her on the baby potty... pictured below! She's so cute!


As you can see, she loved it. We would sit there for a few minutes everyday and read and sing and just have fun. In fact, her first word (duck) was from a book that we read everyday on the potty. That's also where she learned her ABC's, shapes, and colors. After a couple months she started to poop regularly on the baby potty and I was getting sick of cleaning out the baby potty. We put her on the regular potty when she was about 10 months old and never looked back. I can't tell you how happy I was to not be cleaning poops from a diaper! OK, there were occasional poopie diapers, but most of the time she waited to poop on the potty! Happy Mommy, Happy Daddy and Happy Brixie Lee!

I was even more pleased when Brixie Lee successfully started wearing panties 100% of the time when she was 21 months old. That's less than 2 years of diapers! I was over the moon!

Now for Helene... our lives have been dramatically more busy. I broke the potty out when she was almost 8 months old (a month late, I was not happy with myself). Unfortunately, Helene HATED the baby potty. I would sit her on it and she would scream bloody murder and try desperately to crawl away. We tried again a week later and the same thing happened. And again, and again. A few weeks ago she started pulling herself up and decided she wanted to play in big potty. Gross, but at least she was showing interest. I decided we needed to try the big potty but was having a hard time getting to the store to buy the potty seat (Brixie Lee never used one).

Grandma came to Helene's rescue and bought one for her yesterday. She sat on it for 10 minutes before bath and loved every minute. She even when pee! Basically she just wanted to do it like Big Sister does. On the big potty!

Ahhh... the beginning of my freedom from poopie diapers!

The End!

Playing Dress Up...

It's sad to say that my twin is no longer my twin. We broke out some of my old baby clothes and played dress up with the girls. When Helene was a newborn she looked A LOT like me as a newborn. Things have changed and she's starting to have her very own look! My mom and I think this picture of me was taken when I was close to 1 year old.


Now here's my baby girl and it's quite clear that she doesn't look like me anymore :( I guess it was bound to happen sometime! My extremely determined little girl is growing up too fast and I'm spending a lot of time trying to savor every moment. She just recently started giving kisses when asked and I must say that melted my heart!

I know I've posted this picture of my mom and I before, but I wanted to show it again because of the picture below with Brixie Lee in the same dress. Brixie Lee never looked much like me as a newborn, but there are times when she looks like me as a toddler.

My bright, beautiful, big girl may not have her sister's determination, but she sure has her father's memory. This girl listens and remembers EVERYTHING! She knows over a 100 songs (seriously), can "read" numerous books to you via memory (some words), and is always reminding me of promises that I've made (like ice cream after dinner).

Someday I'll try to get some baby pictures of Don Lee so we can see how these girls compare with Daddy. There are many, many times when Brixie Lee looks exactly like her father.

If you would like to see all the pictures from our little dress-up session, you can check out Don's Gallery!